Days of Thunder
by stormsworder879
Summary: Slash Liger Racing! Who woulda thought? A more complete summary inside. Oh, and in case ya didn't catch it, AU. Thanks.


Days of Thunder

The Inevitable Diatribe

**Formalities and the like, as necessary: **I do not own Zoids. Let us praise Tomy, for they do. Anyways, the plot is mine, the characters are mine, and a couple Organoids (the only ones in this work of fiction) are mine. Violence and a bit of harsh language got this work of fiction a T rating. Moreover, I hate reposting these things, so I will not. Do not sue me, because you will not get much dough. Oh, and read and review. I like reviews; they keep me on track. Oh, and for those who are keeping up with my brother's work Zoids Rhapsody, yes, this is what Chesnee was referring to in…chapter two (?)… I believe.

Vinny O.

-----

**Chapter One**

**Nuance or Nuisance?**

The RZ-028+ Slash Liger pawed at the ground expectantly, loosing a long, low growl. Its pilot gunned himself for the worst, every muscle in his body tensing up. He licked his lips once and leaned forward as the lights lit up, all showing red.

They turned yellow, every Slash Liger there revving up their backpack verniers and deploying their blades to fire the attack boosters. Roars now reverberated about the stadium as the Ligers and the anxious pilots waited for the final change.

The light went green and there was a veritably explosion of boosters, the air becoming laden with thrust as fifteen different-colored Slash Ligers accelerated instantly to 320 kilometers per hour, their paws sending up storm clouds of dust from the dirt track.

Thunder roared through the stadium in the form of roars, thrust, and the striking of their paws into the earth hundreds of times a minute.

He came to the first turn, neck-and-neck with a red Slash Liger that had a large white 22 painted onto its shoulders and hindquarters. It was De Von, one of the veterans of this track. Pushing the controls forward and eliciting a powerful roar from his own cobalt-blue Slash Liger, the young man accelerated into the curve, only to suddenly crash into the dirt and skid wildly until he hit the reinforced cement wall, throwing him around in the cockpit with bruising force.

"Dammit!" He shouted angrily as De Von went on, his Liger seemingly laughing, its Hardened Alloy Tail Blade flashing through the air, glinting in the morning sun. The young man thumbed a trigger releasing three rounds form the Trinity Impact Cannons, and leapt the Liger to his feet.

All three rounds missed their mark, instead colliding with the flanks of number 11, Glen Banks. Banks' Zoid teetered, then toppled over in a heap, and did not flinch as the young pilot in his number 19 Slash Liger leapt over the finished Zoid. An announcer relayed the events as though the crowd was completely blind, but the young man heard none of it. De Von was going down.

He blazed through the ranks, his blade units out but folded back, the rocket boosters concealed within them leaving trails of exhaust. The backpack verniers were going at full, but he needed more. Damn the over-armored hull weight!

"Oh, and its number 19, that's Jase Bent, blasting through the Zoids!" The announced cried with gusto. "It looks like he's after number 22, Mach De Von!"

'No trip, old man,' Jase thought to himself peevishly as he leapt up and used poor number 17 as a trampoline, shoving the Zoid into the ground but effectively gaining four Liger-lengths with the leap.

The finish line was upon them!

So close, just a little mo—

"DAMMIT!" He cried in agony as someone's Trinity Impact Cannons peppered his flanks with a volley, crippling the Liger. He stumbled over and rolled, nearly losing the Blades in one fell swoop. As his vision righted, he could see the crowd leaping out of chairs to cheer for Mach De Von, the eastern Guylos hunk who had captured their hearts seven years ago when he joined the Slash Liger Racing Corps, Lt. The bastard had won another one.

-----

In the locker rooms, Jase pulled on his nylon pants hastily as Mach De Von entered. He was going to have a talk with him, but it would help if he were not naked. Forgetting about his shirt shortly, he strode over angrily and poked the taller man in the chest.

"What?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow with much annoyance. Then Jase opened his mouth to give the bastard a good shouting-to, but no words came. He tried again, but his jaw just hung AWOL. De Von sighed, rolling his eyes to the heavens, and said, "Close your pie-hole, nineteen, you're steaming' up the whole damned room." Jase closed his mouth with contempt and walked back to his locker, yanked his red silky shirt out and slammed the door. He left without another glance.

The sun was wafting in through the garage's open roof. It was not so much a hangar as a place to park your tired, beaten Zoid until someone decided to call your personally funded maintenance team to retrieve it. Bluff, as Jase called his Liger with much affection, had managed to bluff the fools who came to drag him away by staggering up onto his four legs himself. He had only looked immobilized! Of course, Jase gave him a good shouting-to for throwing the damn race simply for drama, but there was nothing to do now; it was over.

Jase looked up to Bluff's face with exasperation, running a darkly tanned hand through sweat-soaked tufts of white-blonde hair. He walked a quick circle about the slumping Zoid, checking out the damage to the right flank. It was rough.

"Man, that guy really gotcha good, didn't he, Bluff?" Jase asked the Zoid quietly. The Slash Liger gave a moderate shrug of its shoulders and emitted a passive grunt, as if to say, "Eh, a little spot o' paint work's all, righto!"

"Are you honestly going to tell me," came a high nasal whine, "That you're speaking to that Zoid again?" Jase slumped in despair and turned around, not looking up as his manager approached. He was a sardonic old oaf who thought that emotions and the like were a waste of time. His name was Brand. That is what you called him, no exceptions.

"Yes, Brand," Jase, exhausted and not up to arguing, said evenly, massaging his forehead, "I was talking to Bluff. He is a living, brea—"

"_It_ is a _machine_, Jason!" Brand interrupted fiercely, thwacking the younger man with his ever-vigilant cane. "Get that through your thick, metallic skull! I swear the Republic could have used your damned noggin to block the Death Saurer's Charged Particle Beam! Go on and get in! We're leaving immediately!"

Rather than make any retorting comment about the Death Saurer or CPC's, Jase just yanked his shirt back off and threw it at the man, who caught it without turning and impaled it with the cane, not missing a beat. 'Dammit, I liked that shirt," Jase thought angrily as he waited for Bluff to lean down and open the cockpit. Using the blades and facial armor as steps, Jase climbed in expertly and took the controls as the orange canopy closed with a small exhalation of steam.

He maneuvered the Zoid out of the garage and towards the waiting Gustav's trailers. The Liger shied for a moment, knowing it would have to overexert its hind legs to step up, but with much coaxing and a stream of impatient curses from Brand, it got on the trailer without a sound. Jase leapt down lightly, his metal-rimmed boot soles clacking against the trailer sharply.

It was an unusual sight all around. The Gustav was a dull grey color with a forest-green shell, and the separately bought trailers were the base green from a normal paint scheme. Then, standing sluggishly upon them was a rare cobalt-blue Slash Liger with glimmering golden armour highlights, rather than the more common violet/turquoise, or slightly more common scarlet/gold.

Then you had the old, bald scientific-type guy in a black suit, wielding a cane with an expensive silken shirt run through upon it, and a younger, shorter man lacking a shirt and wearing grey nylons, with a tanned complexion far differing from the pale skin of the old man.

Yes, overall, it was an odd sight, very odd indeed.

-----

One could soon see that odd sight trundling through the desert, its precious (ha-ha) cargo bouncing around all over the trailer, and not staying quiet about its feelings.

"Come on, Brand, let up a little! Bluff's getting thrown all over the place back there!" Jase complained audibly, looking into the mirrors outside his door. Brand gave a grunt and floored it (which did not make much a difference anyways). Jase sighed and massaged his forehead wearily. Brand was in one of his anti-everything moods.

The place they pulled up to might have been a base, or maybe even a house, but was really nothing but a four-walled steel establishment with a Zoids Hangar built onto it. The walls were bleak and grey, nondescript and uninviting. Nevertheless, it worked as a living establishment and a Zoids Maintenance platform.

Jase stepped out and rushed to his Liger, which seemed to be glaring angrily at the Gustav and its pilot. Before he even had his hand on the Zoid's paw, Brand began his usual diatribe of insults and inquisitions.

"So, what happened out there you numbskull?"

"I was shot down."

"It's a race, you idiot, not a war ground. What really happened?"

"Number 14 hit my flank with her Trinity Impact Cannon. I fell."

"No crap, I'm not blind, but that's besides that point! Why were you hit?"

Jase thought for a moment. "Because she maybe shot me?" He offered sarcastically.

"No. How were you shot--and I do not mean how! I mean why!"

Jase huffed and turned away, leading his Liger towards the hangar, shortly ignoring the broken record of a man. This, of course, served to do nothing short of infuriates the old man, who fumed quietly as he followed Jase up to the base.

"Hey, Bill! Getcher boys in here and patch ol' Bluff up right quick. I wanna take him out on a run before dinnertime," Jase said to Bill, the overweight head of the maintenance team they had hired upon joining the Racing Corps. He tipped his cap respectfully and heaved himself over to a small portable phone. Once there, he pressed a few buttons and shouted something bland but demanding into the receiver. Shortly thereafter, eleven men swarmed into the room, readying lifts, cables, and the like to begin work ASAP.

Jase ignored the prying old man further as he swept into the house, kicking off his shoes, which caused an avalanche of tools to fall from a stack in a corner. Silently cursing the old man's quirks, he raced up the stairs and into his Slash-Liger-influenced room.

Influenced was an understatement. The entire room revolved around portraits of his Slash Liger. On his north wall hang that very thing: a three-meter high acrylic-based/oil-finished painting of his Slash Liger standing with blades at half-hold (forty-five degree angles to the body), a paw raised like a pointer, and head held high. It was a regal sight indeed.

Then on his bed were sheets, pillows, and quilts covered in Slash Liger pictures. His laptop computer had a screensaver of two Slash Ligers, one red-and-gold, the other blue-and-gold, going at it head-to-head furiously. A look in the chest of drawers would reveal socks and boxer shorts with Slash Liger depictions upon them. About the only thing, non Slash Liger was his external wear; his shirts and pants were fashionably lacking of Slash Liger stuff.

In addition, of course, he had a poster of his idol, John DeGrey, the fastest and most skillful Slash Liger racer ever to be born. (A/N: think Richard Petty of Zoids. Grin.)

Jase walked over to his laptop computer and plopped down in the chair. He pressed a button on his desk that shut and locked his door in Brand's aggravated face with a resounding slam. The old man went on for some time, swearing and the like, before stomping away down the hall.

Jase tapped the mouse pad to remove the screen saver right before the red Slash Liger lost its legs to the blue one. He had their battle memorized due to hours of mesmerized staring upon the scene for lack of anything better to do. He guided the cursor to the lovely little Slash Liger's head icon that brought up his journal logs, and wrote the following passacaglia quickly and precisely:

'_Today I lost another race to that damned De Von. I have my wonders about that dude. I swear to Tomy he is that Blade Liger Mirage pilot who nearly totaled Bluff the day I met him. I am going out to find him, and if I do not come back, so be it.'_

That remedial task completed, he scrolled back through the entries to the very first one, the entry that described how he met Bluff. It went so:

'_Today the coolest thing in all of Zi happened to me! I was out for a joyride in Brand's Gustav, when I saw a couple of Zoids battling. Zoid Photography being one of my big interests, I pulled over and got out a telephoto-lens-equipped camera to zoom in on the scene and get some snapshots. After I had taken about twenty shots of the white Zoid—a Blade Liger Mirage, that is—I moved to the blue one. I did not recognize it at first, because it was moving so damn fast. Then the other Liger shot it down with a volley from its CP-012 Attack Boosters, and I zoomed in enough to tell that it was a rare blue-and-gold Slash Liger. I also noted that there was no pilot, as I could see through the canopy glass._

_I got in the Gustav and powered towards the area. No way in hell was I going to let that dude just beat the trip outta an innocent wild Zoid. I parked the Gustav firmly before the downed Liger—it had taken a shot to the tube that runs along its neck on both sides—and just sat there until the guy in the Blade Liger Mirage turned and left. Then, with a helluva lot of work, I convinced the blue Zoid to get up onto the Gustav, and I brought it home. They are repairing it in the Maintenance bay, and Brand keeps muttering something about making a lot of money through the Zoid. I told him he was bluffing, and he was like "As much as that pile of metal is!" So, I decided from that to call the Zoid "Bluff". I will register him under my name once he is up and running again. Out.'_

A knock boomed through the room, jarring him angrily from his reminiscent journey. He turned around furiously, screaming "WHAT!"

"Yerrruh lye erff red-duuuuuuhhhh," came a garbled response. Knowing how to understand Bill's odd talk, Jase called a thank you and dismissed him before rising to get his goggles. He loved to wear flight goggles and keep them perched up on his forehead. They were illegal at the tracks for some odd reason, but he would be kilometers away from any legalized racing field for the rest of the day, without a doubt.

-----

"Billy, where the trip did Jase go?" Brand asked of the fat man, whom was currently flipping through a Murasame Liger model kits guide.

"I feen-nuh win ruhhah, boss." Only the word boss came out right, but he understood it to mean that the young man had gone out for a run.

"Dammit!" Brand swore, clacking his cane against the wall. "Sometimes I wish that kid was just a nuance, a figment, a specter…but dammit, he's got to be the biggest nuisance since the Death Saurer!"

Yes, Brand liked to compare things to events that took place hundreds of years before.

-----

Bluff fired his boosters, all three of them, and leapt the gorge in a single, easy bound, flowing through the air like water through a sluice. His blades were glowing with energy that almost dripped off them, forming the semblance of an angel flying through the air before his paws touched ground on the other side of the canyon.

'Well, that oughtta keep ol' wise arse off our backs,' Jase thought. As if interpreting his subliminal emotions, Bluff gave a satisfied grunt. Jase was just along for the ride; Bluff was doing all the running, keeping in practice.

Bluff came upon a pair of perfectly spaced miniature monoliths and readied himself. He ran lower to the ground, taking bounding strides rather than normal steps, and locked his blades in place, steadily holding them at present arms (ninety degrees). As the distance to the stalagmites closed, he flared more energy into them, and closed his head-blades forward, re-routing their energy to the main blades.

He moved between them without stopping, his charged blades slicing through the rocks as evenly as if they were butter. Jase gave a whistle of appreciation. Little did he know that they were nigh upon a natural obstacle course.

Said course loomed out of the hazy distance, corkscrews of limestone, minefields of granite, and lily pads of lead…it was a dancer-Zoid's dream. Not to mention, Bluff had trained here before meeting Jase. Jase was now getting a sick feeling in his stomach as he saw the daunting course. He really did not trust Bluff to go bounding through that thing so early after repairs, but well…the controls were not exactly responding.

Bluff flared into a corkscrew, scaling the twisting stone with effortless grace, and then blasted on to the minefields, small platforms of raised stone. He skipped across them with the same resplendent, liquid grace, one paw per stone, dropping booster output.

Another corkscrew, this time a loop-to-loop, loomed up ahead. Jase gulped as Bluff fired his boosters and threw open his blades for balance, launching into the natural roller coaster without further ado. One, two, three turns through the warped pillar and he was skimming along the flat rock again. Jase's heart was in his throat, beating thunderously.

Then there appeared the lily pads. Jase kept repeating "Oh, no, oh no, oh no…" to himself as he felt Bluff kick off the thrust and gear himself for a jump. Then it was all over, in Jase's mind, as they soared through the air in a perfect arc, landing on all fours on the first lily. Wasting no time, Bluff jumped in an airborne corkscrew, presenting Jase with a view of the hundred-meter drop from any one pad. They landed upon another and kicked off again.

Again, again, and again, and Bluff kept going, taking greater leaps, tracing delicate patterns through the pin-points of stone, until he was on the other side—which was a natural slide. Bluff pointed forward, crouched almost to the ground and fired his boosters again, all four blades planed out for balance.

At the bottom of the slide, they arced up sharply, launching off it into the air at three hundred seventy kilometers per hour. Bluff flared his blades back like wings and stretched all four legs out as far as they would go, then turned on himself and dove straight for the ground.

"BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFF!" Jase screamed in agony as the ground got closer and closer; looming up ahead like some mighty work of Tomy. Then Bluff planed out and actually soared with the momentum he had built up in flight, coming to rest gracefully on a platform of rock. He threw back his head and reared back onto his hind legs, roaring and pawing the air gloriously.

Jase caught his breath, his heart racing, hands and knees trembling like leaves in a gale.

"Please don't ever do that again!"

-----

A/N: Well, this has been sitting for several months… on my CP, that is. If I get at least five nice reviews, I'll think about updating. Oh, my brother has given me full rights to Zoids Rhapsody, so if you like that too, lemme hear it!


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